


Caught Between

by RoseMeister (orphan_account)



Category: Astral Chain (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Female Akira, Gen, Set post-game, Slight Canon Divergence, ending spoilers, slight olive/akira
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/RoseMeister
Summary: Akira’s memory is more holes than fabric these days
Relationships: Akira Howard & Olive Espenosa, Akira Howard & Player Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Caught Between

**Author's Note:**

> you ever just obsess over the implications of one line in the ending & push the concept as far as it can go?

Akira’s memory is more holes than fabric these days. At first, the only thing missing were her memories of whatever happened at the ARI, a conspicuous blank wall she can’t break through. She forces her brother to recount every detail of what happened there, or at least every detail he is willing to share. None of it feels real, and none of it clicks in her head, unlocks any buried memories. Instead it feels like someone else’s wild fantasy, a mad dream she played a major role in.

Hallways lined with tanks, hordes of women with the same face. Her face. Its beyond belief, but her brother’s face is serious as he tells her, pain lingering when he describes how many they had to fight.

It makes her wonder which of the two of them got handed the crueller fate.

But she presses still, until she can recount his story in her sleep. Until she sees the tanks too, and hundreds of women within that she wished she couldn’t recognise. She’d think they were her memory coming back, if each dream didn’t shift and change like the tide, conjured dreams built off smoke and a lingering horror from a memory she will likely never get back.

But at least she could separate the thought of it from herself, most of the time. It’s a distant horror, buzzing just beyond the range of her hearing, sparking up awful questions but easy enough to force into its own box that she can ignore it most of the time. She can blame the trauma, the stress of Yoseph’s betrayal or whatever strange forces he invoked in his final moments.

It’s only when the holes start appearing in her old memories that she starts to feel afraid.

Olive, despite how busy she is with her new responsibilities, and the burden of being commander-in-all-but-name, has still managed to somehow fuss over Akira more than her own brother has. She drags Akira away from the paperwork she has been drowned with, what with Brenda still unconvinced of her capability to do field work yet, and takes her out for coffee at a small café downtown.

Akira tries to drink hers before its cooled down enough, jerks back when it burns her tongue. Olive is eying her strangely, but Akira tries not to focus on that. Her coffee is bitter, much more so than Akira prefers, so she tears open a couple of packets of sugar and pours them in.

Olive is still staring at her when she tries it again, becoming more and more blatant as Akira pours more and more sugar in, until it is more syrup than coffee. Maybe it’s more than is usual, or practical. But something about it feels right. Like her hesitation from earlier was unwarranted, and she did in fact remember what she likes.

Or at least she believes that until Olive speaks.

“Huh.” She says, drawing Akira’s attention. “I remember you once telling me adding anything to coffee was a blasphemy.”

“Did I?” Akira asks. She tries to search her memories, find the boring, mundane ones that slip so easily through the cracks. She barely remembers going out with Olive at any point, if she’s honest. She must have done so at one point, right? Between missions, on a boring day at work. The fact that she struggles to dredge up anything at all is terrifying, twists and turns in her stomach, bitter and acrid like burnt coffee.

“Yeah. Miss ‘I’ll only drink black coffee’. I’m just a little surprised to try something different like this. You seemed so certain when you said it.” Olive laughs, but it sounds forced.

How could she forget, Akira wonders. She wraps her hands tighter around her cup, tighter and tighter until her knuckles go white and the heat is uncomfortable. It may only be a small thing, something that matters little, but the thought of it drives her quietly insane. If she could forget this, what else could she forget? Are there existing gaps in her memory right now, holes blasted open by whatever... Nonsense happened on that tower that not even her brother can be honest about? Or is she falling to pieces right now without realising, having every shred that once made her, _her,_ fall away until there is only a stranger in her place, a woman with her face and her name but nothing else.

Olive is watching her with open concern now, and Akira makes herself swallow. Should she lie, she wonders. Or be honest, shatter the atmosphere with her personal doubts? Neither option she likes.

“I don’t know.” Akira ends up saying. She hates lying. Even barely avoiding the truth like this feels wrong. “I don’t- I didn’t think of that. I only wanted to- It felt right, at the time.”

Olive reaches out, slowly disentangles one of Akira’s hands and holds it. Gently, so gently, like she thinks Akira is a wild animal an inch off bolting. “You don’t have to know.” She says, carefully. You’ve been through a lot, these past few months.”

Akira tries not to clench her hands tight, especially not with one of her hands wrapped up in Olive’s. But she’s frustrated still, with little outlet for such an emotion, and thus left to simmer in it. She can’t even entirely blame Olive for this, not when it’s mainly her own problem. Because she should be fine. She should have moved on by now, have stopped letting everything that happened affect her as much as it does.

She shouldn’t be feeling as upset as she is, at the suggestion that she could have forgotten something as mundane as her coffee order.

“I’m alright.” Akira lies. She can’t look at Olive when she does. Can’t look at the still naked concern on her face, can’t even let herself focus on the feeling of her hand. “it’s just been a long week.”

“It has.” Olive says, letting their conversation shift. She draws her hand away, and Akira has to quell the desire to reach out for it herself. She doesn’t need it, she tells herself. She’s strong enough on her own. “I know I’m not quite used to all the changes yet. This time last week I was still technically on the run, you know?”

Akira does. She’s hit by a sudden memory then, stronger than most. Of how it felt to be told Olive had been fired, that she had been caught leaking information to outside forces and had run before she could be confronted. Worse still, she remembers Yoseph ordering her to arrest her, stronger than any of the memories of before.

Looking back, she mainly remembers how blind she was. Taking orders from a man who would give her no answers in return, training with officers who never spoke a word or let her glimpse their faces. Ignoring each and every sign that something was wrong, too seduced by how it felt to be useful. Too hurt by the thought that those she cared for had betrayed them. Too blinded by what she thought was right.

What would have changed if she had joined them from the start? It’s impossible to know. Cruel to wonder.

“A lot has changed.” Akira agrees. “Commander.”

“Don’t you call me that too. I thought you would care enough for decorum to not call people by ranks they have not earnt.”

It’s a merciful change of topic, and Akira seizes it by the throat.

“Maybe not in paper.” Akira says, quietly. She sips her coffee; forgets for a moment the existential dread it had inspired in her moments earlier. “Not by official decree. But even before all this you were organising us better than Yoseph ever did. You put your job and your safety at risk to stop him, too. And now… It’s not just you taking on the Commander’s duties that has people calling you that. It’s a lot more.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special.” Olive says. She reaches out, takes Akira’s hand again for just long enough to squeeze it before dropping it once more. “Thank you.”

* * *

The question still haunts her, days later. She signs documents and wonders if her signature has changed. She helps Brenda keep tally of their medical supplies, wonders if the old her would be as bored as she is, or if she would have leapt at the chance to be helpful.

She runs exercises with her brother down in the training room, and can’t stop herself from wondering if he can see it too. If she holds herself differently to the woman he remembers, talks different, fights different.

She rediscovers her X-Baton there, shifts its shape until she lands on the one that feels most natural in her hands. The baton is too short, the pistol too inflexible. The sword she isn’t sure of at first. It looks too unwieldy to be practical, forcing her to throw her entire self into any movement if she wants it to behave as she desires. But she slips past her brother’s defences once, feels the impact of it run all through her arm, and doesn’t look back.

What started friendly enough, little more than a chance for exercise, ends as a proper competition. One round, and then another, each one shifting the rules. When they duel with just their weapons, they are almost evenly matched. Her brother likes to change his weapons form at the last moment, shift stances and strike just after dodging. Akira likes to let every thought slip out of her mind, to use the weight of her sword to move herself, until she and it are spun in a dance she couldn’t stop even if she tried.

But when they add Legions to the mix, her brother usually wins. Akira has to focus more to control hers, and the distraction ruins her rhythm, while her brother’s moves like an extension of his mind.

But the training room is not theirs to monopolise forever, and eventually they are forced to stop. They hadn’t kept score, but Akira still knows her brother would likely have won. He still pats her on the shoulder though, smiles in a way that is both familiar and not. Like it had existed in one of those gaps in her mind, only half existent.

“Finally gotten used to the sword, I see.” He says. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you back in the field soon enough.”

 _Oh_. Akira thinks, watching him walk away. He’s gone before she can think to call him back. To ask him just what she used to be, to grab his collar and ask him if he still recognises her. But he has a hundred important things to do instead, with all the missions he is permitted to go on.

And no time to spare for her panicked thoughts.

* * *

It’s been three weeks, and Brenda still won’t clear her.

“I don’t understand.” Akira tells her one morning, having failed some unspoken test. “I’ve been following your instructions. All of them, for weeks. I’m not wounded, or volatile, or untrained. What haven’t I done yet?”

She won’t beg. As much as she wants to go back in action again, to gain some sense of normality again, she still won’t beg.

Brenda checks her screens again. Akira can see them, but the numbers make no sense to her. Empty things, without the knowledge to decipher them. But one of them must be betraying her.

“Well.” Brenda says. “On one hand you’re in suitable physical health. And I have records of your training logs, so I’ve no doubt you’ve maintained the skill necessary. However,” she closes all her screens down, and looks Akira in the eyes, “I’m concerned about your mental state.”

Akira opens her mouth to argue, then closes it, her words running dry. Anything else would be simple. Recovering from an injury depends mainly on patience, and had her skills been lacklustre, pushing in more hours of training would have eased that. Fixing anything so complex as the mess in her own mind is beyond her.

“What’s wrong with mine?” Akira settles on, after a moment.

Brenda sighs. “I can’t say exactly what, given that you won’t tell me anything about it. But I’ve been given concerns from the people around you. That you jump at shadows and react badly to comments they think are ordinary. That you’ve been pushing yourself so hard for so long, never giving yourself room to recover.”

Akira clenches her hands tight, tries to keep her breathing in control. She can’t quite pick out the mess of emotions stirring through her, flowing from panic to anger and back again.

If only she were like Olive, she thinks, that she could wield words like a tool, deflect concerns away from her with barely a thought. As it is, Akira is just Akira. Too blunt to be any good in a role other than her own.

“I was back in the field after a day of waking up in the ARI.” Akira says. “My injuries were worse that time.”

“I disapproved of that too, but _Yoseph_ forced my hand.” Brenda reminds her. “The acting commander agrees with me, this time.”

Akira wonders how much they talk about her behind her back, hates how much the idea sticks in her mind. Of Olive and her brother recording each flash of vulnerability, hoarding them up to show to Brenda later as evidence that she’s not ready, not stable enough. Not good enough.

“I feel fine.” Akira insists.

“Do you?”

“I…”

“I’m your doctor, Akira. I just want to help you.”

Brenda seems determined to drag her back into that mess of confusion that Akira had tried so hard to escape from these past few weeks. To make her not only dwell but talk about it, give it room to breathe and exist even while Akira would prefer to hold it underwater long enough to kill it.

“I don’t have anything to tell you.” Akira says, forcing the words through her teeth.

Brenda just frowns.

* * *

Days pass, and Akira is still trapped in headquarters. Olive’s prior hovering settles into something more friendly. Olive is smart, good with people, with a knack for balancing a thousand things at once. But Akira knows how their officers think, and how to decipher their reports, what details they may have accidently left out. They work well together.

Akira brings her coffee one morning, finding her staring at her screens, a frown on her face.

“Look at this.” She says, ushering her in closer.

Olive points at a section of her screen, results of the training of the newest rounds of Neuron officers, those who had only just earnt their legions.

“They’ve been struggling for days.” Olive says. “Some more than others, but they’ve all been far too slow at improving.”

Akira leans over, stares at the numbers in front of her. Those mean little, so she reaches over and makes a recording play, watches it silently.

“They need an instructor.” Akira says. “But I don’t know where you’d find one.”

Olive puts a hand on her shoulder, and the pieces click. “Oh. Really?”

“Really.”

* * *

They were all police officers before being recruited into the programs so at least Akira doesn’t have to worry about teaching them how to use their X-Batons, but getting them used to controlling and utilising their Legions is a different story. Most can only seem to focus on one task at a time, either having their Legions move to where they want or to focus on their own combat, and trying to get them to figure out how to multitask is like pulling teeth.

The third time she manages to trip Alan over by sneaking up behind him while he was busy trying to chain bind cardboard boxes with his legion, she can’t quite tell if she should laugh at him or berate him for his carelessness. She wants to do both, if she’s honest.

Her brother would likely be better at this than her, she thinks. More patient, calmer and better at dealing with people than her. More skilled with his Legion, too. All Akira knows how to do is teach them through experience. Better she trips them now than for them to make a mistake out on the field, she thinks.

She has them attack her all at once, without her Legion. Their mistakes are obvious, frustrating to them without her commenting, so she lets them correct themselves. Let’s herself slip away, no thoughts, no doubts, just an endless stream of motion.

Her trainees struggle to focus on Akira, their allies, and themselves, and tangle each other more often than they land a blow on her. It’s an awful mess for the first few minutes, before they start to ease into it. Before they stop thinking about handbooks and complex strategies, and start to just react.

It takes a while, but they manage to chain Akira up eventually, Alan feigning weakness for long enough to allow Sarah to sneak up behind her and bind her. It ends with Akira landing heavily on the ground, the officers cheering for her downfall, but it still feels good to be useful.

She leaves them to practice on their own after that, telling herself that she is just glad the Ark will have people to protect it even without her. That she doesn’t mind being made redundant.

She almost believes it.

* * *

Akira makes it to the locker room. Her clothes are too sweaty for her to sit in an office all day, but she has spares in her locker. She brings them out, sorts them into neat piles, then rethinks and puts her ballistic vest back. The habit is hard to break, especially when she feels dangerously naked without it.

The weight of it is comforting, protective. Reminds Akira of who she is, who she’s always been. Who she always wanted to be like.

Akira unbuttons her shirt slowly. Even with no one here, she feels exposed. Like all her anxieties lay close to the surface of her skin, visible to anyone who could walk in. She shrugs her shirt off, and it falls from her hands onto the floor.

It’s cold without it. Akira can see goosebumps raise on her skin, and she shivers, but can’t quite convince herself to keep going. Every second reminds her of something else, somewhere else. It feels less like a hole in her memory, and more like something buried so deep that only the barest echo remains, taunting her. Like if she just pushed a little harder, concentrated for a minute more, she could puncture through the barrier, grasp it with both hands.

All she can remember is a sensation, of all of her being cold, of breathing in air so cold and thick it felt like water. Of not being able to open her eyes, no matter how much she wanted too. Of light she could see through her eyelids, strange and pulsing.

Even thinking of it makes her lungs hurt.

Akira does remember waking up at the ARI however. The bright lights, the thin uncomfortable bed. How strange it was that she didn’t hurt, that she could still breathe, with some half-forgotten memory telling her she should be dead.

Akira traces a hand down the front of her chest, trailing along the scar that runs down it. Even if her memories from before waking up there are nebulous and prone to going missing, this one at least is strong.

No thoughts, no decisions, nothing conscious. Just a blade being thrust at her brother’s heart, and Akira’s desperation to stop it. She had thought she was going to die then, when she could barely breathe, barely even move. She doesn’t even remember the medics reaching her, just the dull roar of blood in her ears, the staggering of her heartbeat.

Now that Akira is alone, the awful questions she always tries to keep submerged begin to rise again. She wishes she could remember going back to the ARI with her brother. That she could remember what her copies looked like. Whether they had a scar like hers. Whether they held themselves the same way, fought the same way. Whether they could speak, think. Feel.

She wishes she had something, some solid proof of who she was, that she could hold out to prove to herself that she was real. That she was Akira. That she was the woman who grew up wanting so desperately to be like her father, who forced her brother to study late into the night, who took tumbles from trees and kept the scar long into adulthood.

That she was the same woman who didn’t think before throwing her own life away to protect the only family she had left.

But she can’t prove it.

Akira pushes in harder on the scar tissue, until it hurts. It feels real. But she can’t even trust that, given everything else Yoseph did, every other experiment he ran on her like she was nothing more conscious as machinery. A weapon, to be copied and remade a thousand times.

She can’t remember. And she can never know. Akira is caught in a masquerade with two masks, neither of which fit her face.

Akira feels like she is underwater, deep underwater, with the pressure crushing in on her lungs until her ribs crack and what little is left of her is lost into the nothingness.

“Akira?” She hears someone call. Distantly. She wonders if she should respond, if she has a right to answer to that name, or if she is merely a good woman’s poor impersonator.

“Brenda sent me to check up on you.”

“Oh.” Akira says. More a breath than a word.

She feels someone’s hand touch her shoulder, grounding and branding her at once. Too hot with nothing to separate them, nothing to protect Akira. No shield to hide behind. Akira feels like every potential lie she has ever told is written on her skin, that they are being read at this moment. That even if she doesn’t know, everyone else does, and is just waiting for her figure it out.

“Olive.” She manages. “I’m- I’m…”

Olive drops down to a crouch in front of her, gently peels Akira’s hand away from her face when she tries to cover it. “What’s wrong?”

Olive is still holding her hand, so Akira twists it around until she can tug it closer, make Olive’s fingers trail against her scar.

“Can you feel it?” She whispers. “Is this at least real?”

“It is.”

Akira tries to tie herself together. To use Olive’s touch like an anchor, one thing she trusts exists, isn’t just conjured up by her pieced together mind. She lets Olive’s hand go, but Olive doesn’t remove it, settling it until her entire hand is pressed against Akira’s heart.

“Is it mine?” Akira asks. “My scar, from my choice? Was I the one who protected him?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Akira tries to focus on Olive. She wishes she had more control, that she could pretend to be fine for a few days more. But she has come apart at the seams, and she can’t sew herself together, or stop her fears from spilling out her mouth.

“They found me, _this_ me I mean, in the wreckage of the ARI. I can’t remember what happened there. And my memory is shattered like glass, fragments of the whole slipping out never to be found again. There’s no way to prove I’m the real Akira, no way to prove I’m not. I’m just caught between the two. Unreal and real. The pretender and the original.”

She breathes in, breathes out, and whispers. “I don’t even know if I’m a liar or not.”

Olive moves her spare hand to cup one side of Akira’s face. Somehow that’s the touch that feels too intimate, and not the hand set on her chest. “Akira.” She says, like a spell. “Akira, Akira, Akira. No matter what you’re still you.”

She feels delirious, like a madness that has been buzzing around her ears for weeks has finally set in and infected her. “Did Akira even survive?” She asks. “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the real one was lost long ago.”

Olive leans in closer. “Stop.” She commands, and Akira obeys instinctually.

“I can’t fix this.” Olive tells her. “And you might not ever know. You don’t get to choose to escape where you came from, the unanswerable question of who you used to be. But you can choose who you will be today. And the day after that, the day after that one too.”

Breathing is harder than it should be, like Akira is breathing in water and not air. Like she’s trapped in one of those tanks her brother talked about. An experiment to be stared at, prodded and pushed.

“Look at me.” Olive says. “You’re strong Akira. I know you are. But this isn’t something you can overcome with sheer force of will. It’s not a creature to defeat. Please stop bottling these things up. Talk to Brenda. Keep talking to me.”

There are a thousand more important concerns to drag Olive’s attention away. But she stays, talking to her gently until Akira is strong enough to stand on her own. Until she feels human again.

“Thanks Commander.”

Olive sighs, but she doesn’t shrug the title off her shoulders, lets it linger unspoken. “Any time, Akira.”

* * *

Brenda clears the room free of people as soon as Akira mentions wanting to speak with her, has her sit down on one of the beds. She insists on checking Akira’s vitals first, and only leans back once she’s completely satisfied.

Akira double checks the room is empty, that no one is lingering outside the door. She waits a second longer, checks once more.

“I’ve been forgetting things.” Akira makes herself admit. She looks Brenda in the eye as she speaks. Brenda nods, motions for her to continue. There are no screens separating them, no computer or notes. No walls to hide secrets behind.

“Important things?”

“No. Wait. Things important to me.”

“Can you elaborate?”

Akira breathes in. Breathes out. Wonders if fears become stronger or weaker once spoken.

Decides she doesn’t care.

“It’s small things. My favourite song. Where the scar on my left knee came from. The address of the house I grew up in.”

She swallows. Brenda doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t break eye contact either. Let’s Akira free to speak as much as she can. And maybe Akira should stop now, before letting anything too dangerous slip out. But there is a flow to her words, as unstoppable as a flood.

“My brother told a story about us in school, about a time I made him stay up all night studying for an exam that ended up being cancelled. I didn’t remember a single moment of it.”

Brenda waits a moment. But she pushes again. “Is it getting worse?”

“I don’t know. I can’t- I don’t know if I’m losing memories or if they were already gone, and I’m only realising now. I don’t even know if this was a problem before ARI, or if that has corrupted everything else as well.”

Too her credit, Brenda doesn’t appear visibly shocked. “I’d like you to keep track of the things you forget. There might be a pattern there, but even if there’s not it might help you to have a record of these things. But really,” She reaches out, touches Akira’s hand. “Thank you for sharing this. Keeping this locked up will do more damage than good.”

They talk more. Brenda has a talent for weaselling out more information than Akira would otherwise want to share, but she is calm about it. Professional. She gives Akira plenty of advice, even if much of it Akira doesn’t want to follow. There’s too much emphasis on waiting, on being gentle with herself, and forthcoming with other people.

Akira has waited long enough. She just wants this over.

But change is slow. Takes one small step after the other, again and again, a hundred minute shifts before anything monumental can occur.

* * *

“Here.” Olive says. “Black with seven sugars.”

They’re on the roof of Neuron’s headquarters. Akira had slipped away here for a brief break, wanting to lose herself in watching the helicopters take off and land. There’s a freedom to be had in the open sky, in escaping from the enclosing walls of the other levels. The other Akira, or the her from before, had liked the roof too. In being both ready for anything and also separate. She’s not impossible to contact should something disastrous require her attention, but she’s can still remain a step away from it all.

This at least is a constant, something to hold onto with all her strength.

“Thanks.” Akira says, taking the offered cup from Olive’s hands. Their hands brush, and Akira tries not to let her mind dwell. “Sorry if I dragged you away from your work.”

“Don’t apologise. This is an excuse for me to step away from everything for a moment too, you know.”

She looks over Akira carefully. Akira wonders what she sees. Wonders more if she would ever tell her.

“I have a job for you.” Olive says. “Once you finish your abomination of a drink order.”

“A job?”

“A mission.” She clarifies. Akira straightens immediately, and Olive laughs softly. It’s a pretty sound.

“I thought you’d be excited.” Olive says. “It’s only a small thing, and I’ll be in contact with you the entire time.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Akira insists. She tries not to let her excitement show too clearly on her face, but she knows she must have failed from the amusement in Olive’s eyes.

“It doesn’t? You don’t want a big dramatic case to hold over your brother?”

“I just want to help people.”

Akira has always hated lying. There’s a relief in telling the truth for once, in forgetting what it means to be afraid of her own beliefs.

Olive smiles. “That’s my girl.” She says.


End file.
